Editorials

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The Mississippi Legislature’s reform of restrictive occupational licensing hurdles deserves praise. It is a model for reform nationwide. The new law creates the Occupational Licensing Review Commission composed of the Governor, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General.

As a psychotherapist, I am glad to see the Harris County, Texas sheriff’s department implementing a program that lets psychiatrists guide law enforcement officers through crisis situations. Crisis Incident Response Team members of the Sheriff’s Department carry tablets in patrol cars when responding to crisis calls.

Sexual harassment has risen to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness with a deluge of recent allegations against liberals and conservatives in many high-profile professions — members of Congress, Hollywood actors, directors and producers, and even journalists who are supposed to be watchdogs against such bad acts.

State Auditor Stacey Pickering recently released a report that raised doubts about the survivability of at least a third of Mississippi’s 19 publicly owned rural hospitals, including Greenwood Leflore Hospital.

Tucked away in the next-to-last page of that 54-page report was a major reason these hospitals are in a financial bind.

It’s hard to comprehend that one carpenter with a vision 2,000 years ago is responsible for the massive celebration today we call Christmas. It is even more amazing considering this carpenter, Jesus Christ, died in relative obscurity in a dry and dusty city in what is now called the Middle East.

There will be an unusual push by Mississippi politicians to raise campaign money in the final weeks of December. That’s because a new state law kicks in requiring any campaign money raised after December 31 be used only for political campaign purposes.

Since 1990, all consumer prices have increased 100 percent on average, medical costs 200 percent and college tuition 400 percent. Those numbers come from the U.S. Labor Department as cited by the Wall Street Journal.

A new study might show why American students do worse on standardized tests than their peers in countries like China, but it won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has worked with young people in this nation.